2012-13 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[therealbig3]

:rofl: @ Conley over D-Will.

The only thing Conley does better than D-Will is defend, and that's not nearly a large enough advantage when you consider that D-Will is a much better offensive player.

Dwill is absolute crap on defense tho. Hes prolly the worst defender out of every star player TBH cant think of someone whos worse. Hes much better offensively but conley is at worst average on offense 18/7 with <2topg 0.53ts against chris paul and thabo sefolosha is nice production. I dunno i came away from the bulls and nets series thinking brook lopez was their best player............

Harden and Melo are a lot worse defensively...total exaggeration to say D-Will is that bad. He's below average for sure, but "absolute crap", "worst defender out of every star player"? I strongly disagree. I don't think any star PG in today's league is even all that great defensively. CP3 is probably the best, and at best, I'd say he's a little above average defensively, and that relatively speaking, it barely plays a role in his overall impact.

Lopez was good in his first playoff series, but he also got owned by Noah in games 6 and 7. His defense wasn't very good, and he became softer and softer as the games went on. His only really good games were games 1, 3, and 5. D-Will was really good in games 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7, and his good games were better than Lopez's good games.

D-Will's defense is not Amare-level bad, come on now, not even close. And it would take that level of epic-fail defense to give a far inferior offensive PG the edge over him.

[Doctor MJ]

So yeah, about Wade...I have to admit there are problems.

/obvious

[Narigo]

Updated list

1. LeBron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Chris Paul
4. Kobe Bryant
5. Stephen Curry

HM: James Harden, Carmelo Anthony

Putting Kobe in my top 5 after Wade injury issues and Melo and Harden playoff struggles.

[toodles23]

After the top 3, this is the least clear-cut year in a long time. I could put a bunch of players at 4 and 5.

[Doctor MJ]

Updated list

1. LeBron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Chris Paul
4. Kobe Bryant
5. Stephen Curry

HM: James Harden, Carmelo Anthony

Putting Kobe in my top 5 after Wade injury issues and Melo and Harden playoff struggles.

You're raising Kobe up because Wade got hurt after Kobe got hurt?

You're raising Kobe up because other players are struggling at a time Kobe would be physically unable to do even that?

[therealbig3]

Klay Thompson is a very good and underrated defender now. He's really versatile, but he does foul unnecessarily at times, but also because the refs don't give him much benefit of the doubt.

The guy at bballbreakdown explained how Klay Thompson basically plays a poor man's LeBron defensively for the Warriors defense.

[Warriors Analyst]

Well, I've still got LeBron/Durant/Paul, then Curry at 4. I think D-Will would be a solid pick at 5. He's one of the most underrated playoff performers of his generation, and he showed how great he could be despite getting little help vs. an elite defense.

What puts Deron over Conley. Unlike Deron Conley is actually playing well over what his numbers suggest while Deron was finding ways to play bad and still put up 32/11.

I don't think James Harden played badly in that first round series, so he's still a contender for me. Honestly, it's probably between Harden and Williams for my fifth spot. Wade, too. And Melo if he can some sucking so much.

Harden couldn't hit a shot, played no defense, and kept turning the ball over at the end of games. If I expected his regular season play in the playoffs he easily gets most disappointing. Also Wade should be barely contending for top 10 the way he's playing. He's been absolute crap and I know some will bring up the injury but Melo and Curry are injured and they're playing well above Wade's level. Also to the argument that he could do more he was 3-10 last game. That's where he's at right now.

I'm loving Marc Gasol's game, but what's the argument for him over Joakim Noah?

He's most likely better defensively (Noah hasn't convinced me he's the best defender on his team yet), he's better in every single way offensively. Anything you think of offensively Gasol is two levels above him. I think Noah is getting extremely overrated. Bulls aren't that good they just got lucky and played Brooklyn (who did things like give up 16 point leads in 3-4 minutes).

Does anybody think Mike Conley deserves an HM? Because's he's impressing the hell out of me, too.

Screw a HM if Deron's in your top 5 he deserves the 5th spot.

Not horribly off-topic...What does everybody think Klay Thompson's potential is? Seems like a good defender, heady offensive player, and lights out shooter. I think he may have the ball-handling base to be just a tad below Harden as an offensive player in the future.

He's just a great shooter. His handles are shaky at best, he can't really create on his own (like a slow, unathletic Brad Beal handling the ball), and I'm not going to make believe I saw a lot from him this year before the playoffs but in his rookie season he was a bad defender. He'll be Kyle Korver with more volume at his peak I think. Personally I though he went way too high in the draft and that for a spot up shooter to go that high it needed to be a weak year (it wasn't) or he needed to show some athletic ability/handles in college (he didn't).

Have you watched Klay at all in the playoffs? He's been the designated lock down defender for the Warriors and we've sticking him on Parker with some success. His off-ball rotations still need some work as he is prone to turning his head and making a few brain farts, but Klay is doing a great job as a 1v1 defender, especially for a 2nd year player in the playoffs due to his length and his lateral movement.

I won't dispute that Klay's handle needs work, but I don't think his inability to create anywhere as bad as you are making it out to be. Klay doesn't suffer that much from a lack of quickness, he just has a loose handle right now that needs some tightening. Klay has actually shown to be much more comfortable driving to the hoop in the last month or two of the season as well as the playoffs, it's just the finishing that needs to get better. I would also say that Klay's driving looks a lot better when he's coming off of a screen or when he has a running start. When Klay sizes up a defender in an ISO situation and takes his sweet time to try and create something for himself is when his drives become hard to watch.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Updated list

1. LeBron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Chris Paul
4. Kobe Bryant
5. Stephen Curry

HM: James Harden, Carmelo Anthony

Putting Kobe in my top 5 after Wade injury issues and Melo and Harden playoff struggles.

Hmm. I had Kobe in my Top 4 before the playoffs, but assumed he would get passed over in the playoffs. I would probably give Curry the edge over Kobe at #4(and he has a shot at #3 if GS goes far), but like you, I think his other competitors have done nothing to pass him, which is actually kinda shocking.

2013 Kobe reminds me of 2000 Duncan who also missed the playoffs. Harden, Melo, Wade, all haven't done anything to pass Kobe, and frankly, LA's absolute debacle in the 1st round tells me more about Kobe's impact on that team. I mean Wade can play like crap and Miami still wins, but no Kobe and the Lakers were run out of the gym.

[Narigo]

Updated list

1. LeBron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Chris Paul
4. Kobe Bryant
5. Stephen Curry

HM: James Harden, Carmelo Anthony

Putting Kobe in my top 5 after Wade injury issues and Melo and Harden playoff struggles.

You're raising Kobe up because Wade got hurt after Kobe got hurt?

You're raising Kobe up because other players are struggling at a time Kobe would be physically unable to do even that?

No, in my opinion, Kobe was better than Wade and maybe Melo in the regular season.

The only reason I ranked Kobe over both of them because Melo and Wade has not done enough to pass Kobe in the postseason

[E-Balla]

I've been in this thread a lot and I haven't stated my top 5 in a while -
1. Lebron
2. KD
3. Paul
4. Curry
5. Gasol

Also on the topic of Conley vs Deron:

What makes Deron way better than Conley offensively. I mean I know he's better but in the playoffs I think Conley's 10 games were better than Deron's 7 offensively. Conley is also on another level defensively. So in my eyes it's Deron's better regular season vs Conley's way better postseason.

Nah, Harden wasn't great, but he wasn't worse than what Melo has been doing (I'm a Knicks fan btw, and though Melo isn't my favorite player by any stretch, I root for him and think people misunderstand his improvement this year, i.e. they underrate his value on the Knicks). Melo's idiotic shooting and poor finishing close to the hoop (don't give a **** about the injury) have really hurt NY's offense in a decent amount of playoff games this year.

It's perfectly reasonable to have Harden over Melo if one thinks Harden's regular season was equal or better. I myself am still debating.

Well Melo's playoff performance should drop him out the top 5 too. In the regular season I had Melo at 3/4th but he's played too bad to stay top 5 just as Harden has.

[therealbig3]

Conley's 10 games: 18.1 ppg, 7.3 apg, 1.9 TOpg, 53.2% TS, 115 ORating

D-Will's 7 games: 20.6 ppg, 8.4 apg, 3.0 TOpg, 57.4% TS, 116 ORating

And D-Will did that without much help from his teammates. The only other person on his team that played well was Lopez, and a lot of his offense came from D-Will's creation. Everyone else sucked.

Conley is playing with Gasol and Randolph, both of whom have played really well in the playoffs, and a really solid cast of role players that are all doing their job very well. Mike Conley isn't expected to do heavy-lifting on offense, he's just expected to be one of many on the offensive side of the ball. He's playing well, but it's not close to what D-Will was doing offensively.

D-Will on this Grizzlies team would be DOMINANT. He was held back big time by a stupid head coach and some really poor performances from his teammates. Conley isn't dealing with that, and again he's not the primary focus of the opposing defense.

"Another level defensively" when comparing PGs really means little when the other PG is on another level offensively.

[E-Balla]

Conley's been clutch though. Deron laid some stinkers in the 4th quarter. I'm not sure how much can be blamed on his supporting cast and coach (who are all horrible) and I still think Deron is the better player but Conley's had the better season IMO.

[Doctor MJ]

I have to say I'm really starting to think a lot about Conley now and am pretty reluctant to eliminate him from discussions like this outright. I doubt I'll end up with him in my Top 10 this year, but this is a guy who has checked out as solid by both his coach & regression data for a long time and is now transforming into something else entirely.

Just for perspective, a crazy stat: Conley's raw +/- the last 3 years is 9th in the league which puts him right between Westbrook & Paul. Everyone else in the top 10 is either Durant, someone on Miami, or someone on San Antonio...and then there's Conley doing this while playing 35 MPG (which means his coach isn't protecting him from bad matchups).

Again I'm not ready to champion Conley too far right now, but sleep on him at your own risk. At this point it looks like two things will be true going forward:

1) Conley will be underrated.
2) Conley will still make all-star in spite of this.

[therealbig3]

Conley didn't have the better season though. "Clutch" is one of the most overrated concepts around.

Using the clutch argument for Conley over D-Will is like that one poster that was using game-winning shots that Melo's hit to put him over Durant and CP3. The argument doesn't really make a lot of sense and doesn't really prove anything.

There's no objective evidence for Conley over D-Will, especially when you consider team context.

Well, I shouldn't say no objective evidence, there is +/-, and Conley has always looked really good in +/-, better than a lot of big name PGs. I think it proves he's underrated, but at the same time, I can't use +/- as a sole reason to put him over someone else who by my eye test and by box score production is clearly better.

[therealbig3]

And Melo with back to back games being held scoreless in the 4th quarter. Does he drop out of the top 10 now?

[ardee]

And Melo with back to back games being held scoreless in the 4th quarter. Does he drop out of the top 10 now?

It is absolutely unfanthomable how this happened to him. At times during the regular season he looked like the best scorer in the league, he's like Monta Ellis in a 6'8 body now.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I'm confused, why is DWill and Conley being mentioned in a POY thread.

[SideshowBob]

And Melo with back to back games being held scoreless in the 4th quarter. Does he drop out of the top 10 now?

It is absolutely unfanthomable how this happened to him. At times during the regular season he looked like the best scorer in the league, he's like Monta Ellis in a 6'8 body now.

Is it though? His game never translated into the postseason before. This year in the regular season it looked like he made some strides, but then he reverted back to his old self in the very first game against us, and at that point it should have been noted that he'd probably continue to struggle again (hell he went something like 8/22 after a 5/7 start in that game alone).

[therealbig3]

I'm confused, why is DWill and Conley being mentioned in a POY thread.

Conley I don't know, but D-Will has an outside argument for top 5.

[CBA]

Deron Williams might not have been a Top 50 player for the first 50 games of the season. Recency bias is funny.